I got up this morning and walked into my back yard. The waning moon was shining through a gap in the branches of my 300-year-old oak tree I stared up at it and said to myself, “I’m right where I should be right at this moment”. I looked up in the tree and saw a family of finches, a seagull flew by, then a pair of crows. I marveled at the life around me. My clarity at 6:15 in the morning shocked me. I was right where I’m supposed to be in that moment and I realized that was truth in so many different aspects of my life.
Woody used to steal a clear plastic cup I used for laundry soap. I’d take it away and hide it from him. He’d find it and I’d hear him chewing it. Last week, I was cleaning under a bookcase and I found it. I could see his very sharp teeth marks in the plastic. I fished it out from under the bookcase and held it in my hand. I broke down on the floor and couldn’t stop crying. I could feel his energy in the cup and when I finally did stop crying, I felt bad about being overcome. It’s been close to 2 years since we lost him, and here I was, lost in grief.
I remember my PCP and my therapist telling me that grief would come in waves, that the waves would come further apart but there would be sneaker waves that would feel like being swept off the rocks and into the boiling sea. They were right. As I reflect on the moment now, I can have some perspective on how I felt, and I realize that I can’t hurry the healing in my life. My time with Woody was short but so potent. I realize that if I accept my feelings, then I can climb out of the depression much faster.
We live near a middle school (where Frank Zappa spent some time in his youth) where there is one crosswalk that is pretty dangerous. The school has taken to putting holders on each corner with flags in them. The purpose of that is that the children carry the flags across the street, wave them if they need to attract attention of the drivers and then they put them in the containers when they safely reach the other side. Right before we lost Woody,
I was training him to carry one of the flags in his mouth until we reached the other side. He loved walking with the kids. When I walk past that corner it’s always a trigger for my sadness. Today, as I walked across that intersection, and I nearly made it across before I started to break down a little. I know this memory is a strong one, and that what I am feeling is exactly the right feeling for where I am today in this moment.
It takes courage.
